


Nice Work If You Can Get It

by Damkianna



Category: A Yank at Oxford (1938)
Genre: Belligerent Sexual Tension, M/M, Pining, Protectiveness, Resentment, Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:35:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21683830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damkianna/pseuds/Damkianna
Summary: The first time Lee got a little mixed up in his head about Paul, it was two weeks till Christmas.
Relationships: Paul Beaumont/Lee Sheridan
Comments: 18
Kudos: 55
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Nice Work If You Can Get It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [melmillo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melmillo/gifts).



> Title borrowed from Frank Sinatra, because I couldn't resist.

* * *

**part i: you can get it if you try**

* * *

The first time Lee got a little mixed up in his head about Paul, it was two weeks till Christmas.

Term had ended, or just about. Close enough, anyway. Lee hadn't spoken to Paul since—well, since that whole incident at the pub. Since Lee had meant to clear the air between them, settle things once and for all with some nice straightforward mano-a-mano, and instead they'd only gotten snarled up even worse.

You couldn't tell by looking, the way they were acting these days. They hadn't fought with each other again, not once. They hardly even looked at each other. Paul didn't seem to realize Lee still existed, most of the time.

But that didn't mean a thing. Lee could feel it anyhow, like a splinter digging at him. They weren't even yet, not by a long shot, and this ticklish, rattled, restless feeling he had wouldn't go away till they were.

It was his fault, too. That was probably the worst part of all.

So he thought about it for a while. And two weeks before Christmas—telling Molly he knew exactly what to get her and it was going to be a whole sack of coal, just to make her laugh at him—it occurred to him that maybe he could start turning things around if he got a little something for Paul.

Obviously it wasn't going to solve everything at once. Just a start, that was all. Just to let Paul know he was willing, and that he understood it was him who had something to make up for now. An olive twig: not even a whole branch, nothing but a trial run. And if Paul decided to use it for a match instead, that was up to him.

The only problem was, he didn't have the slightest idea where to start.

He decided against asking Wavertree, who didn't strike him as the sort of fellow who was likely to give particularly discerning gifts. Except Wavertree was the only one of Paul's friends who was a bad enough liar to trust at all—if Lee went up to Ramsay asking sincerely for something Paul might like to get, Ramsay was as likely to blink at him innocently and then wax eloquent about Paul's profound love of wet hornets and shoe-sized cockroaches, or the gift-giving equivalent, as to actually tell him anything useful.

And Molly had already made it plenty obvious she thought he ought to leave well enough alone. But then she still thought Paul had been lying about the buller, too, that he'd been blowing smoke about how it had been Lee instead. She didn't understand—it was nobody's fault but Lee's that she didn't, but there it was.

So in the end, he found himself making his way to the Craddocks' bookshop.

He had a vague idea Paul might like books, or at least didn't dislike them. And if anybody might have some sense for what Paul had bought himself in the past—nothing for his studies or whatever it was he was reading for at Oxford, but just for himself, because he wanted to—surely it would be Elsa Craddock. If nothing else, Lee thought, no doubt she'd heard Paul invent enough books he wanted to order, trying to make time for the two of them, to have some idea where his head went when he did: what he thought of first, when he was coming up with books he meant to seem like he was after.

Mrs. Craddock looked up when he came in the door, and was all of a sudden right there, leaning in and gazing all sidelong through her eyelashes, before he was even done brushing a flurry of December snow off the shoulders of his coat. For all the times he'd already done his best to fend her off, Lee thought wryly, it seemed hope did spring eternal. And so would Mrs. Craddock, if she had her way.

"Just wonderful to see you, Mrs. Craddock," he said, before she could really get her motor running. "As always, of course, but as it happens, I've got a very particular question today."

"Oh," she said, sighing a little. "Well, of course I'll go and get Claudius right away—"

"No, no," Lee said quickly, "not for Claudius—that is, Mr. Craddock." He cleared his throat. "For you."

She changed tacks on a dime, smooth as anything. "For me?" she said, eyes wide, hand to her chest like he might have confused her with the shelf of books beside her. "Well, of course I'd be glad to help if I can."

"Wonderful, wonderful," Lee said warmly, and smiled at her. "Because, as I said, it's a very particular question I've got, and I don't believe Mr. Craddock's going to be able to answer it for me. You see, I've just got to know what it is Paul Beaumont likes."

He could grant it was an odd one. Especially coming from him. Mrs. Craddock had eyes in her head, after all; she'd been there with Paul in the pub, that evening.

So that was probably why she looked at him the way she did just then. Gobsmacked was the word, Lee decided, and then she blinked at him twice and said, "What Paul—likes."

"Sure," Lee said, and made an encouraging little gesture with his hand. "His preferences, you know. What he goes for, when he can. When he's enjoying himself."

" _Oh_ ," Mrs. Craddock said, hushed, covering her mouth with her hand. "Oh, really, I—I'm sure I wouldn't know. Mr. Sheridan," she added, very pointed and demure, with her eyes still all round.

Well, that seemed like a little much, Lee thought. But then he supposed he was skirting pretty close to something she'd rather Mr. Craddock didn't catch wind of. And it probably wasn't the done thing—especially over here, where there were so many more rules and half of them were backwards—to just go telling your other customers' orders and particular literary interests to anybody who came along and asked.

"Look," he said aloud, "I just need a little something to go on, that's all." He stopped, and swallowed; and then admitted, in a lower voice, "I want to do something nice for him, if I can. We've been at odds since term started, and I'd—I'd like to try to make it up to him."

"Oh," Mrs. Craddock said, visibly softening.

"And you know him so much better than I do," Lee added coaxingly. He only really realized after he'd said it that it sounded like—like he meant something in particular by it; but the thing was, it was true. He didn't know Paul at all, not in any way that mattered. At his worst, sure. But if that was the best way to know somebody, if that was what counted for the most, then they were never going to get anywhere and Lee ought to give up right now. Because Paul knew Lee at _his_ worst, too. That was the thing Lee wanted to change. That was the thing Lee wanted to fix. And maybe it wasn't going to work, but he was going to give it a damned good try first.

He didn't even know why it ate at him the way it did, knowing that Paul thought badly of him. He didn't even know why he hated it so much.

But he did, and he—he couldn't let it go. He just couldn't.

"You've got to have some idea," Lee said aloud, because he could tell he just about had her now. "There's got to be something you can tell me, Mrs. Craddock."

Mrs. Craddock bit her lip. "Well," she murmured. "I—I really shouldn't say, you know. But I suppose it wouldn't hurt anything, would it?"

She held up a hand, cupped around her mouth, and gestured to him earnestly with the other one. And he didn't see why it should be as big a secret as all that. But this was the best lead he had, so he went along, and leaned in.

And then she told him.

He didn't even understand, at first. He frowned a little, absent, trying to make some kind of sense out of it. What sorts of books had titles like that?

And then around about the time when she got to, "—and just under the ear; you know, the side of the throat," he went stock-still, poleaxed, staring out past her at the bookshelves without seeing a thing.

She had the wrong idea, he thought dimly. She had the wrong idea. He needed to tell her so, and make sure she understood. He needed to apologize for the misunderstanding, and leave. He needed to move away, and he needed, he desperately and unequivocally needed to stop _listening_ —

"Oh, well," he said, much too late, loud and awkward in his own ears, stumbling a half-step away. "Oh, well, I—thank you," and he stuck out a hand and felt for the shelf, grabbed the first two books to hand and clutched them. "Thank you, that's—that'll be all, if you please. How much?"

Just so it would look reasonable, that was all. He'd gone to the bookshop, and he ought to come back with books. That was what he'd come for in the first place. He wasn't—he hadn't been looking for—

Mrs. Craddock blinked at him innocently, and told him the total. He paid, face hot, not even checking to make sure he had the amount right, and then he turned on his heel and left before she could offer him any change.

That should've been the end of it.

It should've been funny, even. Just that she'd gotten the wrong end of the stick like that. He couldn't blame her, really. He thought it over later, when he could bear to, and he didn't think he could blame her. He hadn't said the word "books" anywhere in there, after all. Just: _his preferences, you know_. Just: _what he goes for, when he's enjoying himself_. And when he'd told her _I want to do something nice for him_ , she must have thought somehow that he was—that he meant—

It should've been funny. Men didn't _do_ those kinds of things, not with each other. Or at least Lee was pretty sure they didn't in Lakedale. Maybe it was different over here. Another new rule he had to learn: the left side of the road was all right now. Better than all right. Everybody used it, and expected Lee would too.

Or maybe Mrs. Craddock had just picked up some unusual ideas from all those Oxford students she liked to talk to so much. All those—Eton boys.

Anyway, it should've been funny.

But it wasn't. Not quite.

He just couldn't stop remembering how she'd said it, that was all. The way she'd lowered her eyes and gestured, beckoned him closer, and her voice, hardly over a whisper. The things she'd told him. That she could list them like that because they'd happened. Because she'd pressed Paul into a corner somewhere and leaned in and _done_ them all, and Paul had—had liked it so well that she remembered; and she'd told them to Lee because she thought that _he_ was going to—that he wanted to—

Which he didn't, of course.

He didn't. He was going to get his head on straight again, and get a good night's sleep, and forget about it. Tomorrow he'd be fine, and it would be like it had never happened.

And he managed to believe that right up until he woke in the middle of the night, breathing hard, chest heaving, heart pounding, from an impossibly vivid dream of _and just under the ear; you know, the side of the throat_. Of Paul, too close, liking it very, very well.

He screwed his eyes shut and rubbed the heels of his hands into them hard. Okay, all right, he could admit it: he was a little mixed up.

That was the first time.

(Well, all right. The first time _might_ have been somewhere a bit before that.

When they fought in the pub, maybe. The satisfaction of laying hands on Paul, finally, after wanting to for so long, after thinking about it so much.

Or Paul at the relay, his cool sharp voice, his steady eyes. The way it had burned to think he didn't believe Lee could run it and win, that he'd wanted Lee replaced in the lineup; how abruptly, furiously determined Lee had been to prove him wrong, and never mind what it would take to do it.

Or even—

Even all the way back at the beginning, on the train. Sitting there alone, further than he'd ever traveled in his life from Lakedale, and seeing Paul and his friends. Seeing them, and realizing maybe they were going to Oxford too. Wanting to be one of them. He hadn't even known Paul's name yet. But he hadn't needed to, to know he wanted to be sitting there with him, laughing and at ease, belonging.

The first time it happened might have been a while ago. But the first time Lee _noticed_ it was two weeks till Christmas, talking to Mrs. Craddock in the bookshop.)

The first time lasted for a while.

He wanted Paul to forgive him. He really did. It still made him awfully uncomfortable to think about it—all Paul's friends, and even Molly, thinking Lee had done right by Paul when he hadn't.

He wanted to put the whole thing behind him. He wanted to have it over and done with, so it wasn't niggling at him all the time.

And the dream only made it so that even when he was asleep, he still couldn't get away from Paul.

The dreams, really. Because it wasn't just the one, it was that whole week, over and over. He couldn't make them stop. And if they'd been helpful at all, that would've been one thing, but they weren't.

It wasn't as if he were going to do _that_ , after all. As if Paul even wanted him to. As if Mrs. Craddock had been right, and he could offer it up like a Christmas present: _look, just say you'll forgive me, say we're pals, and I'll_ —

He started dreaming about that, too, after a few days. About offering. About Paul insisting, even. That that was the only way to make them square, the only thing he could possibly be convinced to accept. That after the buller, and the pub, and Lee pushing him down off the track at the relay, there was nothing for it except that he should push Lee down in his turn and—and—

Lee just couldn't get it out of his head.

But dreams were like that sometimes. Weren't they? They just happened to you. They didn't make sense, didn't mean anything. They didn't matter, and you might as well ignore them.

One of the books he'd grabbed off the shelf and bought, in that rush to get himself out of the bookshop, was classical history. Probably nice enough, if that was the sort of thing you liked. But Lee remembered Paul's tone on the train, when he'd talked about Molly and her studies, people who'd been dead three hundred years—and this was a lot further back than that. No way that would cut it. Either Paul wouldn't care about it at all, or else it would seem like some kind of jab, deliberate, when that was clean opposite what Lee was going for.

The other one, though, was geography. So maybe he did have half a Christmas gift after all, for Paul. A real one. One that made sense.

He looked through it a little, and thought about it. He flipped all the way to the front of the book, the blank endpaper. He looked at that, too, for a minute. And then he picked up a pen off his desk, and wrote on it.

_For the next time you have to tell some American the right stop on the train._

There. That was all right, wasn't it? It didn't sound mean, and it didn't sound—mixed up. A joke, but not a cruel one. A reminder. The first time they'd seen each other, the first time they'd met.

That was just fine, he decided.

Except he had to give it to Paul, too. That was the hard part. Figuring out when, figuring out how. Maybe he'd just leave it outside Paul's room, or with his mail or something. He thought about Paul picking it up, wondering who'd gotten it for him—opening it, and reading what Lee had written, and understanding, realizing. He wouldn't smile, Lee thought. But would he be confused, or would he be angry? Would he stand there with it for a minute, and then carry it into his room to puzzle over? Or would he just throw it out the window into the snow, and not look back?

It made Lee nervous just thinking about it. It made his stomach jump; he couldn't sit still. He was hardly ever nervous—he wasn't used to it, he didn't have the constitution for it. He felt sick, except he'd never been sick a day in his life.

He set the book down on the edge of his desk and left it there.

The next time he touched it, it was already New Year's, and it was just to shove it onto a shelf so he wouldn't keep looking at it all the time.

* * *

The second time Lee got mixed up about Paul, it mostly wasn't the first time anymore.

Mostly. He still dreamed, sometimes.

And compared to that, the second time hardly even counted. Supper—at Cardinal's long tables, but somehow, rushing to sit without paying enough attention, Lee and Paul ended up next to each other.

Paul didn't look at him. Paul didn't say a word to him.

But Lee could feel his own pulse pounding away in the base of his throat anyway, and every time he swallowed it sounded loud in his ears.

Paul got himself sconced for the first time that night. Lee didn't know that was what it was when it happened, but Wavertree explained it to him after. Something to do with Paul making someone else pass him the salt when Lee could've reached it without trouble. Lee had missed exactly what had set the whole thing off, too busy making sure he himself wasn't about to do anything reckless.

But the rush of sudden attention, the arrival of the sconce—he couldn't not look over, then.

And seeing Paul like that, flushed and irritated; the way his throat moved, when he lifted up the sconce and started chugging away at it—

Well. That was the second time.

* * *

Then there was a third time. A fourth.

They just kept on coming. They didn't seem like much in comparison to the first, the way the dreams were still hanging on, coming back around to fill Lee's head up with all the wrong things at all the wrong times. But they piled up a bit at a time, and it got harder and harder to ignore them.

Paul's face. That was the problem, really. Paul's face, and the angles of it. How stark it got, and the way he tilted his chin up like he was just daring you to take a swing at him, when he was angry.

His hands didn't help, either. The shape of them, the absent graceful way he held a pen while he was thinking, as he studied.

His eyes, sharp and steady on Lee. When Paul looked at him at all, which of course was hardly ever. But in its own way that only made it more satisfying, a rush of smug hot exhilaration, whenever Lee _did_ manage to catch him at it.

Lee stopped counting after about the seventh.

He stopped counting. It wasn't that he forgot any of them. He couldn't. But partway through Hilary term—that was what it was called, over here—was when it occurred to him in a sudden terrible jolt that Paul's room was just below and across from his: first landing, to the right, with Lee upstairs and to the left.

Just below and across the landing, _all the time_. And Paul was _there_ so much, unnervingly close and entirely out of reach, both at once. Studying, probably. Bent over his books, holding his pens the way he did, running his fingers tiredly through his hair. Reading, writing, sitting. Breathing. _Sleeping_ , which was obvious and yet once thought proved impossible to un-think. Dressing, in the mornings when he rose; and—and _un_ dressing, too—

The point was: partway through Hilary term was when Lee stopped counting.

* * *

He wasn't going to let it get the better of him. He wasn't going to let _Paul_ get the better of him, not this way or any other.

But as Oxford started warming up with the first hints of spring, Lee couldn't help thinking he was in a tight spot—and it was only going to get tighter.

He'd been doing all right so far. But he could admit, if only to himself, that that might be more than a little bit because he and Paul hadn't been made to see or speak to each other in a while. And they could get away with that, over the winter.

But spring? No help for it, not in spring. Because if Lee still meant to row—and he did—then he was going to have to do it in Cardinal's boat. And Paul was captain.

Lee wanted to know what to expect, that was all. He wanted to have some kind of a plan. If Paul was likely to be hard on him, or to take things out on him, he wanted to be ready for it.

So that was how he ended up asking Wavertree to tell him about—Paul.

Wavertree blinked at him, and kind of moved his mouth sideways, and adjusted his glasses.

"With boat club and all," Lee said hurriedly, before Wavertree could somehow get the wrong idea. Not that he was likely to end up as far wrong as Mrs. Craddock had been, but—

"Oh, yes," Wavertree said, expression settling into something less uncertain.

"Because I'll be rowing," Lee said anyway, just to be clear about it. "And he's captain and all. I just want to know what I can expect. It would be nice not to have to worry about getting an oar to the back of the head some dark evening in the boathouse." He paused, and found himself biting his lip, and looked at Wavertree. "And you know him pretty well, don't you?"

"Yes, I suppose I do," Wavertree said, looking—chuffed, Lee thought. Chuffed. That would be the proper Oxford thing to call it. Because hardly anybody came to Wavertree looking for advice about anything. "And if nothing else, Sheridan, I believe I can assure you that you needn't worry he'll _murder_ you. That would get him sent down in an instant." He chuckled a little. And then tilted his head and adopted a considering expression.

"Don't murder anybody, Wavertree," Lee said.

"What? Oh, I wasn't—I wasn't really," Wavertree tried, unconvincing, and then sighed. "Yes, all right. At any rate, I must admit I'm not entirely sure what to tell you. Paul's—" Wavertree made a helpless gesture. "— _Paul_. And I know the two of you don't get on, but I haven't the slightest idea why. I mean, you fought, of course, but—this isn't still all about just that one evening at the pub, is it?"

Lee winced, and looked away. He didn't want to think about that. He just wanted to get through this mess somehow and leave it behind. "Look, it isn't anybody's business except—"

"I didn't mean to pry," Wavertree said, blinking. "It's only that you're—you're really quite alike, that's all."

"Me," Lee said real slowly, eyebrows raised up so high even Wavertree wouldn't miss it, "and Paul Beaumont."

"Well, yes," Wavertree said. "He's quite clever, you know. And you're no slouch, Sheridan, or you wouldn't have made it even one term. You both hate to lose and you're horrid about it when you start to think you might, but aside from that you're decent fellows. Better than, really," Wavertree added after a moment, thoughtful. "Paul's always been rather reckless with his personal affairs, I suppose. But when it's up to him to be—right, or fair, or just, when anybody other than him is relying on him for it, well. He is. He always has been, that I know of. That's exactly what makes it odd that he's been so positively beastly to you all this time—"

Lee winced again, and cleared his throat. "Odd or not," he began, meaning to push on. And then he stopped.

He stopped, and an unpleasant sinking feeling gripped him.

"So he wouldn't," he said, and then had to clear his throat again. "He wouldn't, say, put himself forward to get one over on somebody?"

"For a laugh he would, of course," Wavertree said, and then made a sheepish face. "But I suppose you figured that out for yourself in the train station in Didcot."

Lee had. But he was starting to think his figures had been a little sideways.

"And perhaps it was a bit overboard, getting the whole college involved," Wavertree was saying.

"But if it were for Cardinal," Lee interrupted. "Or for Oxford."

Wavertree's face gave him the answer first: wide round eyes, eyebrows pulled into a startled frown. "No," Wavertree said then, sounding as shocked as he looked. "Goodness, no. I shouldn't think so. Not Paul. It's always meant a great deal to him to do the college proud. And Oxford in general, really. Uphold the right and all that. He wouldn't have been made captain of Cardinal's boat otherwise. No, you've got nothing to worry about—he'll be fair. He won't like it, and he doesn't like you, but he'll be fair."

Lee swallowed. It should have been the answer he'd been looking for. He should have been glad to hear it.

But all he could think was: the race. He'd always thought Paul must've seen it as an opportunity, must have been eager to take the place that should have been Lee's in the relay—that he'd been frustrated to have it taken back from him. He'd gotten the whole college together once just to make a joke out of Lee. Why shouldn't he have done it again? Even if yanking somebody's pants off them just for winning a race you'd have lost really was some sort of grand old Oxford tradition, and not just another mean trick, Lee had been much too angry to care.

But he wasn't angry anymore. Not really. And if that hadn't been Paul's idea at all—

He didn't need this, he thought. He didn't need to be thinking things like this. He didn't need to be discovering that maybe Paul wasn't half bad, that maybe he was the sort of person Lee'd have wanted to be friends with if only they hadn't gotten off on the wrong foot quite so hard.

He didn't need any of this. He was mixed up enough about Paul as it was.

"Yeah," he made himself say, "well. Thanks, Wavertree," and then he got out of there and went up to his room, and spent the rest of the afternoon not thinking about Paul at all.

The unfortunate part was that what he'd told Wavertree had been true. Cardinal's boat club _was_ starting up, now that it was the season for it. And there was no avoiding Paul, when he was captain.

And, worse still, what Wavertree had told _him_ turned out to be true, too.

Because if Lee had been right about Paul, he'd never have been made stroke. Two-seat, maybe, to Paul's stroke; but not the other way around.

Except the other way around was exactly how it happened.

It should have brought back that sick sinking feeling tenfold. But by the time they knew their seats, Lee was just plain grateful. Because the rowing had only made it all worse. Paul's bare shoulders when he pulled his oars, the—the lean hard muscles in his back, and his arms, the motion of his strong steady wrists, when he feathered them—

There was a reason Lee made it a habit to joke around and get himself pushed in the river every now and then.

So learning he'd be stroke was a relief. Nobody in front of him but the cox, and Paul in two-seat, safely behind him and entirely out of view.

And maybe, he told himself, this was what he'd been waiting for. Maybe this meant they could finally move on from it all at last, and once they had Lee would stop being so—so twisted up inside about Paul. Because Paul was captain, and must have had to at least agree that Lee ought to be stroke, even if he hadn't liked it very much.

So this could be a page turning over. Couldn't it? This could be a new leaf. Maybe it had only ever been a matter of time; maybe Paul was thawing just like the weather, because winter couldn't last forever. As long as he wasn't dead set against Lee, they'd be all right, surely. Lee didn't need more than an inch, if Paul would only relent and give it to him. He could turn it into a mile all by himself, if he had to.

Except the day after that, he ran into Paul outside the boathouse.

Right bang into him, in fact—coming around the corner, and for a second it was all Lee could do to try to catch himself, slow down and steady his feet and make sure whoever he'd knocked himself into didn't fall either.

He didn't know it was Paul till he looked up.

Paul had caught himself against the wall of the boathouse with one hand. The other was hanging there, lifted, half-open, stalled out in midair—because just the way Lee had reached out and caught his arm to steady him, he'd meant to reach back and steady Lee. But only when he hadn't known Lee was who it was.

For a moment, his face was still blank, clean, surprised.

And then Lee said, "Oh, I—Beaumont," and it was—

It was like frost settling on a windowpane, like a wide lazy river freezing over. Lee watched what happened to Paul's face, and felt a dim cold foreboding settle heavy in his chest like a stone.

Funny, almost, that he should have thought to himself so hopefully that Paul might have thawed.

Paul looked at him, gimlet-eyed, and then pointedly down at his own arm—where Lee's hand still was. Lee jerked it away, awkward, face hot, flooded with the sudden unfamiliar sensation of self-consciousness. He'd reached for Paul without thinking. He hadn't even known it _was_ Paul. But now he did, and there was something about the whole idea of— _touching_ Paul that was unmistakably complicated.

He wondered, resigned, what it was going to do to the dreams, now that he knew what it felt like to have the whole width of his palm pressed to Paul's bare upper arm.

"Sorry," he said, and then wished he hadn't. It wasn't anything worth apologizing for, putting a hand out to try to help somebody. It just felt like it was, because of the dreams—because of the way Paul was looking at him.

He cleared his throat.

"Look, Beaumont—"

Paul didn't let him finish. He stood there and he met Lee's eyes again. He'd set his jaw, and his lip was starting to curl just a little, scornful. And then he looked away, past Lee, as though—as though Lee wasn't even there, and stepped out neatly around Lee, and walked away.

Lee turned, and almost grabbed him again to stop him; and then he realized what he was doing and winced, faltered, and just that fast Paul was already gone, out of reach and then some.

Too apt by half. Paul was out of his reach, all right. Paul was out of his reach, and maybe always had been, for all that Lee had laid hands on him not a minute ago. And Lee stood there, swallowing hard, looking down—rubbing his palms absently against each other, as if that would be enough to scrub away the memory of Paul's skin beneath them.

But it wouldn't be. He knew that already. It was like Paul was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Too close, much too close; right there in his head, all day and all night, so that Lee couldn't get rid of him. And yet he kept slipping through Lee's fingers, too, impossible to hang onto. Further away than ever, every time Lee tried to catch up to him.

That right there, that was worse than any of the rest of it. That moment, alone by the boathouse, left behind. The dreams, the way he'd caught himself looking at Paul, the things he'd caught himself thinking—and all of it paled in comparison to the sudden sinking understanding of exactly how far along he was. How bad it had gotten, how bad he had to have it, for learning that Paul still thought of him the same way he always had to make him feel like this.

* * *

He got his head on straight, after that.

He should've known better than to think Paul would change his mind. He had to stick to things he could do something about. Things that were real, things that mattered.

He'd made it into Cardinal's boat. He was going to be stroke. So he'd be the best damned stroke he could be, Paul or no Paul. And Paul could hate him for it all he liked. That wasn't Lee's problem.

He studied. Hard, harder than he ever had before—much harder than he'd ever had to at Lakedale. He rowed for the boat club, and he ran just because he wanted to, just because he liked how it felt. He listened to the bells of Oxford whenever they rang, like they were ringing just for him.

And he spent more time with Molly. That one was easy, wonderfully and reassuringly easy. He couldn't shake a nagging feeling that he should have thought of it sooner, and that it was somehow telling that he hadn't. But even setting aside all the rest of it, the way it felt to hold her hand and laugh with her, the way she smiled at him—Molly was his friend, too, and had taken his part when it came to Paul. It was a comfort; it made him feel so much less uncertain, and so much more like there was a chance he had the right of it after all.

Even if it was only because he hadn't told her the truth. But he mostly managed not to think about that too much.

(He tried, once.

He tried to tell her. That morning on the river, listening to the choir sing—the beauty of it, the calm water, the pale new-risen sun, and Molly beside him, and Oxford all around him. Feeling like a part of it, like maybe he did belong there after all.

And then, as if inevitably, they were suddenly talking about Paul.

He hadn't meant for that to happen. It was Molly who'd brought Paul up first, but it still—it still felt like somehow he'd made her do it, thinking about Paul so hard that he'd willed the words out of her mouth.

And all at once, he was abruptly and uncomfortably aware that he didn't deserve this. Not any of it. Not the voices of the choir in his ears, not the river beneath him or the sky over him. Not Molly, settled so trustingly beside him, and probably not Oxford, either.

Not when he hadn't told her. Her, or anyone. Not when he hadn't owned up to it, the way he should have months ago. He hadn't lied, not quite. But he'd let everybody who knew Paul go on thinking something that wasn't true, when he could have made sure they'd understand what _was_ true instead.

And then, as if to underline the point, Paul had arrived.

He probably hadn't even seen them. He probably hadn't even known they were there. There was no way he'd planned it, or deliberately decided to launch his boat in the same part of the river where they were. If anything, he'd have—he'd have gone out of his way to make sure he didn't, and that he was as far away from Lee as possible, and oh, Lee hated how much that thought stung.

But it felt for a moment as though he had to be there for a reason. As though he was meant to bear witness, and when Lee had gotten the truth out at last, Paul would turn around right there in his boat and smile, and that was how Lee would know he'd finally done it right.

Except Molly wouldn't listen to him. He tried to insist, but she was too upset—she didn't want to hear it.

He should have waited. He should have spent the day with her, flinging woo, making her laugh, and then tried again later, when she'd be willing to let him.

But it had taken so much just to get that close. It had been so hard. It wasn't like running races or breaking records; it wasn't something he was any good at, being in the wrong and saying so. Half the reason he'd wanted so badly to force it out right then was because he suddenly hadn't been sure he could trust himself to work up to it again, if he fumbled it.

And then Molly had gotten a hand on the paddle and turned them around, and all the half-formed courage he'd slapped together had crumbled away again. He'd let himself fall silent, and mixed in with the lingering guilt still churning around in the gut of him had been a cool, terrible, cowardly sort of relief.

He'd tried. Nobody could say he hadn't tried. Wasn't that good enough? What more did anybody expect from him, anyway?

Except he couldn't even hang onto that, that petty mulish resentment. Because Paul _had_ expected more from him, had expected more and had been disappointed.

Nobody had ever expected more from Lee than he could do, and could do easily. Everybody had always accepted that from him, and gladly, and celebrated it besides, cheering for him along the way. 440, in 47 flat; no more had been asked of him, and so he hadn't given it, and everybody had always loved him anyway, in Lakedale.

But that wasn't enough for Paul. _He_ wasn't enough for Paul.

He wasn't enough for Paul, and he couldn't bear it. And he didn't want to have to keep trying to be, not if he was always going to fall short.)

The point was, he decided what he was going to do and then he did it, and he stuck to it. And it worked out all right, up until the bump race.

Because he thought he was all right. He thought it had worked. He thought he was as good as past it, looking out at all of Cardinal College cheering for him, feeling bright and warm and glad—feeling like himself again, not mixed up at all.

But then he looked along the table and his eyes caught on Paul. Paul, who was looking back at him. Smiling a little, maybe. Satisfied with the win, and with his choice of stroke having worked out so well. But not moving an inch, not even clapping. Because he didn't figure there was anything there worth clapping for.

Lee made himself look away, but it didn't matter. The cheering felt like it had faded out, even before it actually did. It felt far away, and sort of thin. It felt like it couldn't amount to much, suddenly, put across the scales from Paul's deliberate silence.

He begged off saying anything, and they let him get away with it. It wasn't modesty, not really. He just didn't want to anymore. Knowing Paul would be sitting right there listening, and that no matter what he said, no matter how gracious and generous and sporting he tried to make himself sound, Paul would know better than to believe it.

In a funny way, Paul knew him better than anybody else in this room. And Lee couldn't stand to think of being looked at by him, knowing what it was he'd see when he did.

Which was what made it such a surprise when Paul stood up next and said what he said.

Lee was sure he must have heard wrong, at first. That Paul should give him the honor of being the one to set the boat alight at all, never mind doing it like that—giving him so much credit, when it was Lee putting himself forward all the time that had made Paul despise him in the first place.

And for about half an hour—half an hour with his heart firmly lodged in his throat, half an hour where he wasn't sure his feet were touching the floor—he couldn't help but _hope_.

He'd learned his lesson that day outside the boathouse. Or at least he should have; because that way it wouldn't have been such a grim shock, the way Paul looked at his extended hand and then at him, and Paul's unreadable face in the flicker of the leaping flames.

"I'm sorry, but I choose my friends very carefully," Paul said, calm, stark, before he turned and walked away, and left Lee there in the dark.

He didn't want to stay, afterward. He should have, probably. Somebody might miss him. But he didn't want to, so he didn't.

He went back to his room instead. He didn't think about Paul, who was probably out somewhere with Mrs. Craddock right now; who probably _wasn't_ one floor down and a door over, so there was no point in even wishing for—wishing for—

He stalked in and slammed the door behind him, and relished the bang it made even as he managed to hope belatedly he hadn't woken Scatters downstairs. He shucked his jacket off like he was getting ready to belt somebody, and never mind that there was nobody in here to belt. He just couldn't stand it, couldn't make himself hold still.

He hadn't bothered with lights. The room was dim. But not dim enough that he didn't recognize that damned geography book, when his gaze fell on it.

It felt emblematic of every stupid thought he'd ever had about Paul, about trying to make it all up to him somehow. He snatched it off the shelf in a furious rush, cursed it under his breath and swung around and threw it at the opposite wall as hard as he could.

It was quiet, once the book was done tumbling to the floor. Silent, practically, except for Lee catching his breath, except for the thunder of his pulse in his ears.

He stood there, and swallowed, and let his eyes fall shut.

And then he crossed the room and knelt down and picked the book up again. Smoothed the pages back down, where they'd been bent or crumpled when the book had landed on them, and closed it.

He took it back over to his desk, and he set it down, and he looked at it, for a little while.

And when he woke up the next day, he had a twinge in his back, from falling asleep sitting there with his arms folded over the cover, and staying that way all night.

* * *

The night he climbed down into Paul's room and found Elsa Craddock there, it should have been a relief.

After all, that was more than enough to get Paul sent down. And if Paul got sent down, well, he wouldn't be around anymore. He'd leave. Lee wouldn't have to see him, wouldn't have to look at him—wouldn't have to speak to him, or row with him, or fight with him. Not ever again.

Lee thought about that for a second. And then he took Mrs. Craddock by the elbow and drew her sharply toward the windows. He couldn't expect her to climb back up to his room, not in that dress. Down, then. He'd take her down to the ground floor. That was Wavertree's room—and from there, they might even be able to get out the front hall before anybody stopped hammering on Paul's door long enough to turn around. If they were lucky.

They weren't.

After that, well, it was all pretty straightforward.

The only surprise about any of it was that Paul tried to stop him.

Once Lee was told he'd be sent down, he figured that was it. All that was left was to—well, like the man said: to make his arrangements. Scatters knew how it should all be handled, of course. Easiest thing Lee had ever done, in a way, getting kicked out of Oxford; he could just sit back and listen to the bells, and let it happen.

And then Paul showed up.

Lee hadn't been expecting that. He hadn't been expecting it at all, and he definitely hadn't been expecting it to be because Paul thought there was more to the story—because, this once, Paul somehow wasn't ready to think the worst of him.

Which made it funny, in a grim sort of way, that this once Lee should have to make him do exactly that.

Because Wavertree hadn't been wrong, when he'd told Lee what he'd told Lee about Paul. Paul wasn't always careful; if he had been, then Elsa Craddock would never have ended up in his room in the first place. He wasn't always thoughtful, and he wasn't always kind. But he was bullheaded, and he didn't back down, and he thought he knew what was best. He'd already resented Lee plenty, and he still hadn't given Lee up to the dean for punching that buller—he'd almost been sent down for that alone.

So there was no way he was going to stand by and just _let_ Lee do this. Not even now, not even when he despised Lee as much as he did.

And it should have been a pleasure to at least get one over on him, tricking him like this. Except even that was frustrating. Lee didn't know he'd almost wanted Paul not to believe him until it was too late—until Paul was glaring at him all over again, because he actually bought that Lee had done a thing like that to Molly.

But then Lee'd never proven he wouldn't. Not to Paul. And maybe from where Paul was standing, it wasn't so hard to start thinking that Lee might—might not speak up or come clean; might keep a nasty little truth to himself, instead of being upfront about it and facing the consequences.

He didn't know Dad had done anything until it was already over.

Until Paul came and told him about it—about _Wavertree_ , which was a laugh and then some, and Lee was so giddy with relief he almost couldn't _stop_ laughing.

He gripped Paul by the arm, the shoulder, without thinking, as he laughed.

And Paul let him.

Paul let him, and Paul was laughing too. As if, Lee thought dimly, he had anything to be giddy about; as if it wasn't the worst news he could have asked for, that Lee wouldn't be sent down after all.

But maybe somehow it wasn't.

He didn't have the time to think it through right then. He had so much to do—he had to help Scatters unpack everything again, and he had to go see the dean, and probably Snodgrass, too, to make sure everything was straightened out for next term. And there was Dad, and there was the Boat Race.

It was all a blur, a glorious haze. He felt filled up with brightness, glowing with it: knowing he wasn't going to have to leave after all, and having Dad here with him—Dad, as much a part of him as breathing, and Oxford, where he was just starting to understand he wanted to belong as much as he'd ever belonged in Lakedale.

Even the race was like that. The strain, the tension; the pound of his heart and the rasp of his breath, the ache and the pull in his muscles. It was all there, but it was—he felt like he was flying anyway, like nothing could touch him.

 _Ride 'em, cowboy._ That was what Paul said to him, half a shout over the thump of their oars and the spray of the water. And Lee looked out past the cox's shoulder at the river, bright under the sun, and knew Paul was at his back, and pulled—felt the boat beneath him, light and sweet and fast, and even though the race was far from over, somehow it was already impossible that they could ever lose.

And he was right: they won.

They won, and he let himself fall back against Paul's shins, his knees, chest heaving; and Paul leaned in over him and clasped his shoulder, and there was nowhere in the world Lee could imagine he'd rather be.

* * *

**part ii: won't you tell me how**

* * *

They celebrated, after.

Everybody did. All of Oxford, probably, and certainly all of Cardinal College—it felt like everyone Lee had ever met since he'd arrived, and plenty of people he hadn't, were all lining up at once to slap him on the back and cheer for him, and tell him what a cracking job he'd done; good show, old boy; up Cardinal, and up Oxford.

And oh, it was a good, familiar feeling to have won. But better still—better, brighter, new and strange and wonderful—was Paul there with him once he'd done it, right next to him every time he turned around, or even hanging off his shoulder. _Smiling_ at him, looking flushed and pleased, eyes warm.

That was something else. And Lee was starting to think "mixed-up" wasn't the word for it, not anymore.

"Sheridan!"

Lee looked up.

It was Ramsay, beaming, and Lee laughed and let Ramsay sling an arm around his shoulders to give him a quick companionable squeeze.

"And Beaumont!" Ramsay cried, with equal enthusiasm—and stumbling a little as he tried to reach for Paul too, so apparently he'd already helped himself to some of the unofficial refreshments.

Lee steadied him. He didn't have any particular fondness for Ramsay, but that didn't matter to him very much just then. He felt overcome with goodwill, a friend to all the world; and so he steadied Ramsay, amiable, obliging, and then met Paul's eyes over his shoulder and wanted abruptly to laugh. Paul had a speaking sort of look that seemed to say much the same thing Lee already felt: that here was Ramsay, and they'd be generous to him, because this night was theirs and they were brimming over with magnanimity, and Ramsay could have some, bless his heart.

Or at least that was how Lee would have said it. Paul would probably be more—British about it.

"—wonderful, just wonderful," Ramsay was saying, gleeful, swaying in place just a little. "Really brilliant! Didn't let them get the better of you for an instant, no, sir. Hell of a stroke you are, Sheridan!"

"Oh," Lee said, "oh, well, I—there were seven other guys doing a little rowing, too, you know," and he found himself ducking his head.

It had always struck him as silly before, playacting, as if the only thing being modest really meant was pretending you hadn't done well when you had. But somehow it had felt different this time, being in that boat; knowing all of Cardinal, all of Oxford, was watching them, cheering for them, behind them all the way. That _Paul_ was behind him—physically, sure, but also in half a dozen other ways that mattered to him even more. And Lee didn't know if he could've won without them.

Even if he could've, he was starting to understand that maybe he wouldn't have wanted to.

"And you!" Ramsay went on, swinging back toward Paul. "O captain, our captain! Steering our Cardinal boat to glory—"

"Hodges is the cox, Ramsay," Paul said mildly, "he did the steering."

But his mouth was slanting up, and his eyes were bright, and Lee wanted to laugh just looking at him—wanted to laugh, wanted to shout, wanted to set off half a dozen fireworks at once.

"Oh, come on, now," Ramsay pressed.

"All our men did wonderfully," Paul said, steady. "And of course you're quite right about one thing, Ramsay: Sheridan's a hell of a stroke."

Ramsay shook his head, laughed at them and clapped them both on the shoulders, and then pushed off again into the crowd. Lee wasn't looking—he couldn't stop staring at Paul.

And Paul smiled after Ramsay, and then let his head fall back and smiled at the ceiling of the hall, too, as if he were as happy with it, with the building, as with everything else tonight. And then he turned and looked at Lee, and raised an eyebrow, mouth curving.

Amused, Lee decided dimly, by—by the dumbstruck way Lee was still staring at him, probably.

"I mean it, you know," Paul said, more softly than he'd spoken to Ramsay, and he was—he still had a hand on Lee's shoulder, and was drawing him in a little by it, making sure he'd hear Paul's lowered voice over the general din. "You're a hell of a stroke, and I'm glad to have been your two-seat."

"I—Beaumont," Lee made himself say, because that was how they did things here, surnames all the time; because it suddenly felt dangerous, to think of how it would sound if he said _Paul_ instead, right here, to Paul's face.

And Paul kept looking at him, and something changed in his expression, something that made his eyes narrower, made that look odd and searching. "I know," he said at last. "Sheridan—I know what you were doing. I understand now."

Lee felt his breath catch in his throat.

That was it, the thing he hadn't managed to put together in the moment that it happened: he'd been braced at first, when Paul had come to him, just waiting to see what Paul would have to say about him next. And then he'd been relieved, gloriously relieved—and much too distracted to spare a thought for what it meant.

But Paul had come to him. Paul had come to him, and Paul had been the one to tell him about Wavertree and his confession. Paul had gripped him by the shoulders and laughed with him; and he wouldn't have done that if he'd thought Wavertree was only covering for Lee. He wouldn't have done that if he'd still believed Lee had been treating Molly shamefully.

He'd figured it out, somehow. Or Dad, Molly, they'd—they must have told him. It might even have been Mrs. Craddock.

But one way or another, however it might have happened, it had to be true. Paul knew.

Paul knew Lee had done it for him.

Lee went hot, and then cold, and then hot again. He felt self-conscious, oddly exposed, by the thought that Paul knew. But at the same time it was almost gratifying, in a mindless selfish way that made Lee's stomach jump—that this time, the gap between the truth and what Lee had let people believe was true hadn't made Paul hate him, but rather had made Paul—

Had made Paul thaw out after all, at last.

"I didn't then," Paul was saying. "I didn't then. I was a brute, and I'm sorry. I was wrong about you, Sheridan." He paused, and his mouth curved even more. "Or rather I was right about you, but only at first."

"Gee, that's some kind of apology, Beaumont," Lee said, and he wanted it to sound level, steady, a little amused, but he wasn't sure he succeeded.

"You lied to everybody and put yourself forward, just to get the better of me," Paul said, a flicker of shadow crossing over his face.

Lee didn't let him finish. "Not _just_ to get the better of you," he said. "To win that relay, too."

"Mm." Paul had gone gimlet-eyed, just the way he used to do every time he looked at Lee, and for a moment Lee felt a lurch, sure he'd ruined everything all over again.

But then Paul softened, warmed right up again, and moved his hand—not to take it away, but to clasp Lee by the nape of the neck instead.

"And then," he went on, more gently, "you lied to everybody and almost got yourself sent down, just so it wouldn't be me instead. Even if it meant you couldn't row at all."

Lee swallowed, and bit the inside of his cheek, and didn't answer, and that sweeping hot-cold-hot feeling went through him again.

"So we're square, Sheridan," Paul concluded. "We're square—better than. I've no idea what you were thinking, doing such a damn fool thing for me after—" He stopped, and shook his head; and then he shook Lee a little, too, a quiet friendly push-and-shove by that grasp at the back of the neck. "But then I suppose I should've known, shouldn't I? You Americans. Cowboys, all of you. Reckless."

Lee snorted, and Paul grinned at him, and—and didn't move away, didn't let go. Lee reached up and caught Paul's arm, the crook of his elbow, and didn't look away, and Paul didn't either.

His heart felt abruptly snagged in his chest, as though it had been sculling along easy as anything and then had somehow caught a crab. Something crossed Paul's face that Lee couldn't have named if he'd tried—he'd stopped smiling again, but not in a way that made Lee think he was angry. His eyes were very wide, and very dark; and somehow everyone else in the room seemed much further away than they really were, and hardly real at all compared to Paul's slim strong hand against the back of Lee's neck.

"Beaumont!"

Paul startled a little, and looked away, and as quick as that the hall had settled into place around them again, and Lee could breathe.

It was Wavertree this time, coming up to give Paul a slap on the back, to laugh and lean in and say something to him that Lee couldn't quite catch over the—over the buzzing in his ears, the sudden too-loud sound of his own breath harsh in his throat.

He blinked, and swallowed, and tried to will that hot prickling feeling off his skin.

He'd only half succeeded by the time Wavertree turned to him and said, "And Sheridan! I almost forgot—Molly's waiting for you out by the gate."

And that did the trick. Paul cleared his throat, squeezed Lee by the nape of the neck one more time and then let go, and eased his elbow out from under Lee's hand, too.

"Well, go on," he said, and smiled: a tighter smile, smaller, and Lee didn't know why.

But he did have to go. Molly couldn't come in, not at this hour, not to the grounds of a men's college. And Lee had to talk to her.

He felt suddenly surefooted, clear-headed. He had to talk to her. Long past time he did, really, but since he couldn't go back and do it right the first time, this was the best he could do.

"Sure, sure," he said aloud, belated, and clapped Wavertree on the shoulder. "Thanks, Wavertree."

Molly was waiting for him, just like Wavertree had said.

He went out to her where she was standing beneath a streetlamp, and she saw him coming and smiled, and rushed to meet him. "Oh, Lee, you were wonderful," she said breathlessly, and leaned up to kiss his cheek, once and then again, like she couldn't quite help it.

He hugged her, and swallowed hard. His eyes stung a little, but he blinked it away, and pressed a kiss of his own down into her hair; and she laughed into his shoulder and then drew away a little, the better to beam up at him some more.

It was probably the last time she'd look at him like that for a while, he thought distantly. But that was all right. It was only going to be as much as he deserved.

He hadn't expected to feel so calm about it. After last time, on the river with her—how hard it had been to brace himself for it, how rushed and fumbling he'd felt trying to get it out, and the sick relieved way he'd swallowed the words back down when she'd made it clear she didn't want to hear them—he'd thought it would be like that again.

But his heart was steady in him this time, and his hands were steady, too, when he reached out and put them on her shoulders and said, "Molly. Molly, there's something I have to tell you."

She looked up at him, still smiling wide, eyes bright. And then she must've seen something in his face, because her brow drew down just a little, puzzled. "Of course, Lee," she said. "What is it?"

And then he told her.

For all that it had weighed on him so long, it didn't actually amount to much in the end. A handful of sentences, that was all, to explain what had really happened that night at the pub.

She didn't believe him, at first. And then he got a little further, and she did. He could see the moment the balance started to tip, the way her face changed.

He fell silent, when he was done. She didn't say anything for a minute.

"And you let me think it was Paul," she murmured at last, looking off along the street, biting her lip. "You let me think it was Paul, and that he'd lied to me, that he was being cruel to you for no reason, all that time."

"Yes," Lee said, "I did, and I'm sorry."

Because it was true. It was true, and he'd needed to say it. He'd _wanted_ to, it was—he couldn't have gone any longer _without_ saying it.

It was just like the race, like the way he'd felt about it: that winning might not have been enough, if it hadn't been for the boat, for the club, for Oxford. It shouldn't have been better for Molly to be upset with him than pleased with him—but it was, because at last she was upset with him for the right reasons, instead of pleased with him but only because she didn't know any better.

 _I'm afraid they don't consider it a victory, sir_ , Scatters had told him after the relay. And he'd been bewildered, then. It hadn't made any sense to him.

But he didn't want a victory with Molly if that was how it had to be done. Winning like that would have been the same as losing; winning like that wouldn't deserve anything but a funeral march.

He understood that now.

Molly had her hand over her mouth. She held it there for a moment, and then let it drop, and looked up at him again. "You let me think badly of him, and I—oh, I treated him badly for it, too. I _defended_ you to him. Oh, Lee, how could you?"

"I know," Lee said quietly. "I'm sorry, Molly. I don't have any excuse for it, and I'm sorry. I should have told you when it happened, I should have cleared it up right then and not let you go on misunderstanding things, and I didn't. I wanted to just forget about it. I didn't want to think it mattered, when that would put me in the wrong and I knew it."

Molly looked at him some more, and then—it was just like the look on Paul's face, the way her eyes narrowed a little, the thoughtful searching way she was gazing at him. Beaumonts, Lee thought wistfully.

"That was the part I couldn't work out, you know," she said softly. "You were protecting someone, I knew that, but even after I learned it was Paul, I still didn't know why. You were going to get sent down for him, and I couldn't understand it. But this is it, isn't it? He didn't give you up to the dean. He told us all it had been you, and we didn't believe him, and he _let_ us, he didn't say another word about it."

Lee looked away.

"And you knew," Molly went on. "You knew he'd been the better man, and when the chance came to do as much for him as he'd done for you, you took it. You felt you had to take it. Oh, Lee," she added, warm and sweet and sad. "I don't know whether to kiss you or kick you."

Lee swallowed. "Do I get a vote?" he said unsteadily, and she laughed a little, shook her head at him and took his hand in both of hers.

"That was awful," she said, "what you did to Paul, and I—I'm afraid I can't forgive you for it, not right away. But—" She stopped. "That was lovely, what you did _for_ Paul, and I appreciate it very much. And I promise I won't forget about that either, Lee Sheridan."

She pressed his hand close, and smiled at him just a little. And then she stepped away, turned around in a quick flurry of steps and left without kissing him goodbye.

He was pretty sure he knew what that meant. But he couldn't blame her for it. He couldn't blame her for it, and he couldn't be sorry he'd told her, come clean.

Because that was exactly what it felt like. Clean: a big old stain scrubbed out at last, everything neat and smart and smoothed out somewhere deep inside him, where he'd been crumpled up tight and only ever pretending not to notice.

* * *

Dad had to head home again pretty quick—couldn't leave the paper to run itself for too long. Lee stretched out every minute he could get, showing Dad around Oxford, introducing him to everyone and telling him all about how things worked around the place.

But it went by too fast by half anyway. And after that, it was still a couple weeks before Trinity would even start.

Molly was taking his calls, but not much else. Half the guys who actually lived around here were gone every other day, visiting home or off enjoying the break. Lee didn't know what to do with himself.

And then one afternoon somebody came knocking on his door. And when he stood up and went over and opened it, it was—Paul.

"Cowboy," Paul said, and smiled at him, quick and lopsided. "Bored stiff, are you?"

"Aren't I _just_ ," Lee said, and Paul laughed.

They went out on the grass just to sit—it was sunny today, for once, after Dad had had to put up with two whole days of nothing but gray drizzle, and starting to really look like April instead of March.

It was nothing much at first, really. Polite nothing much, at that: Paul asking how Lee's first couple terms had gone, or at least the parts that that beastly Beaumont fellow hadn't ruined for him; and Lee grinning at him and answering, obliging. Some back-and-forth about professors, ones Paul had had so he could tell Lee what to look out for next time around, and ones he hadn't so Lee could tell him what they'd been like.

There was a bit of a lull, here and there. Not uncomfortable, just the sort of quiet you fell into when you didn't have anything right at the tip of your tongue to say.

But then, at the end of one of those lulls, Paul cleared his throat and said, "I—haven't seen you out with Molly, lately."

"No, you haven't," Lee agreed, mild. He'd lain down on the grass, folded his hands behind his head; he tightened his shoulders and tipped his chin up, now, the better to peer at Paul upside-down.

"Have you fought?" Paul said quietly. "Or is it—you don't need to worry about me, Sheridan. I know I was cross before, but it was only because she'd taken up your banner and come charging at me—"

"It's not you," Lee told him.

He hadn't thought about it. He supposed he could see how it might look from where Paul sat—that Lee had gone to all that trouble to make it up to Paul, and who was to say he wouldn't break things off with Paul's sister, too, if he thought that would help?

But all he could think now was how backwards it was. That if anything, with things settled between him and Paul, he should've clung to Molly all the tighter. He'd have been guaranteed to see Paul again, that way—even after Paul graduated, after Lee himself did, Lee would still have had a reason to come around and be wherever the Beaumonts were.

Except there was something off about that thought, too. Lee bit his lip and felt his chest tighten, and tried not to let it get the better of him.

"You argued, then," Paul was saying, nodding, as if that were the only reasonable conclusion. "Well, don't worry, Sheridan, you'll sort it out. Molly can be awfully stubborn, of course, but she'll come round in the end if you give her time."

"No," Lee said, "we didn't argue."

He stopped.

"I guess," he said more slowly, "it _is_ you, actually. But not the way you're thinking."

He stopped, and rolled partway over so he could push himself up on one elbow, just beside Paul's bent knees. Paul was frowning down at him, flummoxed, and Lee looked at him and then away, rubbing at his eyebrow with one thumb, and told him.

It was just to explain, that was all. So he wouldn't go bothering Molly about it or anything. But Lee felt abashed anyway, admitting right to Paul's face that it had taken so long for him to lay things out for Molly and make her understand.

So he was surprised, when he risked a glance once he was done and saw that Paul was smiling.

Paul noticed him looking and bit down on the smile a little, ducked his head and said, "Sorry, Sheridan. It's only—I got bent out of shape about it," he confided, "when she took your side. Hard to help being glad to think she'd have stuck by me if she'd only known."

"She would have," Lee said. "She couldn't think the best of both of us at the same time, that's all, and she had the bad luck to decide to think the best of me, instead of you."

It didn't bother him to say it like that. He meant it, because it was true. But somehow that was what made the smile slip off Paul's face; and Paul looked grave, sober and serious, when he said quietly, "Really, Sheridan, I'm—I'm sorry. I can talk to her about it, if you like. Or anything else that might help, if you'll just tell me what. We're mates now, after all—"

"We're," Lee said, startling up, skin hot—and then he remembered, and had to laugh, sharp, bursting out of him. It had been a while since he'd gotten that one wrong; but after another couple repairs, he'd met the bicycle repairman's _mate_ , and it hadn't been a woman like he'd expected.

For a minute, until he worked out what the real mixup was, he'd thought—

Not that it mattered what he'd thought. He'd been wrong, that was all.

"Friends, you mean," he managed. "Sure," except even that was enough to make his heart feel squeezed in his chest. It had hardly felt guaranteed—it still didn't, even now that Paul had said it aloud. Paul had forgiven him, or at least wasn't holding anything against him anymore; fine. Paul had been pleased to win against Cambridge, and glad he'd let Lee be placed as stroke; all right. Paul had thought of him, and decided to come up and take pity on him, and be decent to him for an afternoon—sure enough.

But Lee wouldn't have assumed any more than that. And he'd never have expected Paul to offer it to him so readily.

"That is, if you like," Paul said, after a moment.

His tone wasn't breezy. He wasn't making light of it. He sounded earnest and tentative, and he was watching Lee steadily, wetting his lips, like he wasn't sure what Lee would say next. Like he thought Lee might turn him down.

"Well, if you insist, Beaumont," Lee heard himself say, and Paul's mouth twitched, and then he laughed.

"All right, I do," he said, "so that settles it."

He held out a hand.

Lee looked at it. _I choose my friends very carefully_ —it had stung then, when Paul had said it and walked away from him, and all the more so because it had been true. But that only made it mean more now, that Paul was, maybe, choosing him.

Lee swallowed, and clasped that outstretched hand in his, and shook it.

Paul grinned at him. And they sat there for a minute after smiling at each other for no good reason. They weren't even shaking hands anymore, except they also hadn't let go—they were just lingering there palm-to-palm, flushed and glad, and Lee couldn't stop staring at the color of Paul's eyes in the sunlight.

And then Paul cleared his throat, and drew his hand away. Not far: just enough to hook it around his knee, so his knuckles bumped Lee in the shoulder. "Which means," Paul said, "that if this jam you're in with Molly is my fault, then I'm duty-bound to help you sort it."

"Oh, come on," Lee said, "weren't you listening to me at all? It's my fault, if it's anyone's." He shook his head. "It's for me and Molly to work out between us, if we're going to work it out. Or—not to, if we aren't. It's all right, Beaumont. Understand?"

Paul didn't look as though he did. His jaw had tightened, and he looked mulish, as if even if he did understand he wasn't about to say so.

"Sheridan—"

"I mean it," Lee said. "Don't you say a word to her." He nudged Paul's knee with his shoulder, deliberate, and raised an eyebrow. "For all I know, you'll just make it worse, and it'll take twice as long for her to forgive me."

Paul made a face at him, but the corners of his mouth were softened again, and after a second he smiled a little.

"Yes, all right," he said. "But she's a fool if she doesn't. You know that, don't you?"

Lee's face had gone hot again. He looked away. "Well, I don't know about that—"

Paul caught him under the chin with the side of one knuckle; Lee didn't realize what he was doing until Paul had already brought his face around by it, lifted it up. And then he—he didn't quite move his hand away, the backs of two fingers barely grazing Lee's throat, hardly there at all except for the way Lee's skin felt burned by each brush of them.

"She was lucky to have you," Paul said, lower still. "You made her laugh, you thought about her, you wanted to be around her all the time—she was lucky, Sheridan. She wouldn't throw that away."

Paul's thumb touched just under the line of Lee's jaw. Lee sucked in a sharp breath without meaning to, and his heart was pounding.

And then all at once Paul's hand was gone. He'd pulled away, and pushed himself to his feet, and he wasn't looking at Lee anymore.

"Come on, cowboy," he said mildly, conversational. "Up you get. It's about time for tea, wouldn't you say?"

Tea, Lee thought. Sure. And he stumbled up somehow, but it was harder than it should have been: his knees were weak.

He should have known.

He'd thought maybe the race would do the trick, if anything could. Paul forgiving him like that, and them winning it for Oxford together. He'd thought having it settled might settle him, too, and then he wouldn't keep thinking the kinds of things he'd been thinking about Paul. Because he _had_ Paul, after that, in so many of the ways that counted most. He had Paul, and once he had Paul, surely he couldn't—he couldn't keep _wanting_ Paul so badly.

But he did. He did, he still did, and he just couldn't figure out how to stop.

* * *

Paul came around all the time, after that.

Lee couldn't decide whether it was better or worse. Not that it had made him happy, back when he was dreaming about Paul every night and Paul would barely even look at him. But it was a whole different kind of hard to bear, feeling the way he did about Paul and having Paul—in his rooms, or walking him to dinner. Slinging an arm around his shoulders, and talking to him, and smiling at him.

Hard to bear, all right. Except he wouldn't give it up for anything.

He was busy taking his own advice when it came to Molly: calling her, and being friendly about it, but not pressing her, not crowding her. Of course he'd be glad if she was willing to spend time with him again, but he was starting to think that maybe—well.

Maybe she was better off, not tangled up over Lee while he himself was still tangled up over Paul. Because if it wasn't going to go away on its own anytime soon, this thing he had over Paul, and if he couldn't figure out how to make it, then—

Maybe she was better off, that was all.

The point was, he didn't notice what Paul was doing until she pointed it out.

He was just glad to see her there at all.

Boating, just for fun. Paul had invited what seemed like half of Cardinal, plus some co-eds from one of the women's colleges—but it felt for a minute like the only thing Lee could see was Molly, standing there on the riverbank and smiling fondly at him. He hadn't really realized how much it had stuck with him, that soft sad disappointed look she'd given him last on the night of the Boat Race; but it had, and seeing that look gone for real was a weight off and then some.

She laughed, and made a face at him, and when he got close enough she went up on her toes a little and kissed him on the cheek. Quick and friendly, not the slow sweet way she'd liked to do it when they were—flinging woo. But he was too grateful to mind, and—

And she really was better off, most likely, he thought ruefully.

They ended up in the same boat, but that wasn't really strange. Paul was in it with them. And if he kept calling out to everybody who turned to chat with either of them, and got them talking to him instead, well. Paul was pushy, and always liked to be in the middle of everything. He looked good like this—out on the water, at his ease, alight and smiling, and—and sunlight really did do awfully unfair things with the angles of Paul's face, the brilliance of his eyes.

Anyway, the point was, it wasn't as though Lee minded having Molly there to talk to, to keep him from staring too much, or doing anything else too foolish to bear.

She told him all about what she'd been doing with her time since the Boat Race, about her friends and her reading, the lectures she was most looking forward to next term. Lee listened to her and laughed with her and came back with the same in kind, and it felt like no time at all before the boats were all steering over to the low grassy stretch of bank where Paul had said they ought to have their picnic lunch.

And he and Molly got out together, of course. There were blankets to sit on, and Lee was handed one by Paul that was only large enough for two, so naturally he offered to share it with her, and brought over one of the picnic baskets for them to split, too.

It was only right then, coming over with it to sit down by her again, that he noticed the look on her face: sly, and fond, and amused.

"Oh, Lee," she said, when he raised an eyebrow at her curiously, and then she shook her head. "He isn't very subtle, is he?"

"What?" Lee said.

"Setting us up like this," she said—mild, even, but one corner of her mouth was still drawn halfway into a smile.

"Setting—" Lee stopped short, and bit the inside of his cheek. Oh.

He looked up.

"I didn't ask him to," he said, quick. "I told him to leave you be—"

"I didn't think anything of the kind," she assured him, and laughed. "Even if I had, I wouldn't now. The look on your face! No, he hasn't said a word to me about it. He talks about you all the time, of course," and Lee felt a strange hot jolt go through him even as she added, "Just in an ordinary way: 'oh, Lee and I went out', 'well, Lee and I were talking', 'just the other day, Lee said to me'—that sort of thing." She shook her head sagely. "But he does always think he knows what's best for everybody, doesn't he? So I suppose I should've known he'd try something like this, if he thought he could get away with it."

"Still," Lee said, "I—I'm sorry, Molly."

"Oh, as if it's such a hardship," she said, laughing again, "to come out and eat a picnic lunch with you, on a nice day?" She looked at him warmly, and then elbowed him unhesitatingly in the side. "Come on, Sheridan, let's make the best of it," and then she dug into the basket to see what they had to choose from.

They did have a good time.

And Lee didn't regret it. It was nice to know that they could—to have proof that he'd managed not to ruin everything between them after all.

But he wasn't going to let it go, either, now that he understood what Paul had been doing, and that he'd done it even after Lee had told him to let well enough alone.

He waited until they were back at the hall to get into it. He didn't want an audience, and he didn't want Paul thinking he did. That was probably all it would take to make Paul decide he'd been right about Lee all along.

He just stuck with Paul instead of going on upstairs to his own room—first floor, to the right, and two strides toward the door to #10, Paul noticed and looked back over his shoulder, eyebrow raised. "Something I can do for you, Sheridan?"

"Sure, Beaumont," Lee said. "You can tell me what you were thinking, trying to set me and Molly up together all day long."

Paul slowed, and then turned around for real right in front of his own door, leaning back against the frame of it with one shoulder. Caught, and he knew it: that was what the look on his face said, the rueful slant of his mouth and the careful thoughtful way he wet his lips before he spoke. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean," he said.

"Oh, come off it," Lee said, mild and steady. "I told you it was between me and Molly to figure things out for ourselves. I told you to let her alone. And you agreed, and then you go and—"

"You told me not to say a word to her," Paul corrected him, eyes wide and earnest, the very picture of innocence. "And I didn't."

Lee gave him a long level look.

"Yes, all right," Paul allowed, after a moment. "I may have stuck my oar in a bit, as it were," and his mouth was tugging up as he said it, wry.

"Oh, you may have," Lee said, "may you."

"I may have," Paul repeated.

He stopped, then, and looked down and away, and lifted a hand to scratch at the corner of one eyebrow with his thumb, absent.

"I thought it would be better," he said, more quietly, and cleared his throat. "I've—not typically proven to have the best judgment in personal matters."

"Don't I know it," Lee murmured, and Paul gave him a sharp amused look and then flicked his gaze away again.

"I get stubborn about things," Paul went on. "I get stubborn about things I shouldn't, and I don't like to lose." He cleared his throat again. "So it would be better, Sheridan, if you and Molly were—it would be better that way. That's all."

Lee frowned at him a little. Not that he had any argument to make against any particular thing Paul had said. But he felt as though he'd missed a step somewhere along the way. What did Paul and his judgment, his stubbornness, have to do with Lee and Molly?

Maybe he only meant that he'd been too stubborn trying to put Molly off Lee. That he'd been irked, to feel like he'd lost when she'd stuck by Lee anyway, and that he'd figured this might make up for it.

Sure. That was probably all it was, Lee thought.

"Well," he said aloud, "thanks but no thanks, all right? This isn't your problem to solve, Beaumont."

And for some reason, that made Paul laugh a little. Laugh a little, and press a knuckle to the bridge of his nose, and not look up. "Isn't it," he said, so softly Lee almost didn't catch it.

It hadn't sounded like a question, not really, but Lee answered it anyway. "No," he said, and reached out to curl a hand around Paul's shoulder. "It isn't. It isn't."

Paul did look up at him then. And Lee became abruptly aware of how they were standing—with Paul backed up against the doorframe like he was, and Lee in front of him, holding him there, and Paul's hand suspended between them. As if he might reach out and set it to Lee's chest, or—

Lee swallowed, and made himself take a half-step back and let go.

"All right?" he said, belated, and it sounded too loud in his ears.

But Paul just smiled at him, small, lopsided. "Whatever you say, Sheridan," he said quietly, and reached down without looking away to open his door.

And Lee stood there helplessly, and couldn't look away from him either, until at last he'd closed it again behind him, and Lee was left there in the hall, skin hot, trying to catch his breath without quite knowing when he'd lost it.

* * *

By the time term started, Wavertree was as likely to come looking for Paul in Lee's room as he was in Paul's. Half the time, Paul wasn't even there for any particular reason—he'd just come up because he could, because he had nothing better to do and the view from Lee's room was better than the view from Wavertree's.

Or at least that was what he said, grinning, the one time Lee ventured to ask.

And if Lee had thought about it, he'd have realized there was a risk. He'd have realized that the longer Paul spent in there, poking around and looking through Lee's things while Lee finished up a letter to Dad or tried to work out his schedule for Trinity or told him to cut it out, the worse the odds got.

But Lee didn't think about much of anything except Paul, most of the time.

So he didn't even know what might have happened, didn't even have a guess, when Paul tipped a couple books off his bookshelf, flipped one idly open, and then went still.

He did notice, after a second. The quiet, the empty space where Paul muttering to himself and shifting his weight had been, and that Paul wasn't moving anymore, where Lee was able to see the dark shape of his legs out of the corner of one eye.

Lee looked up. "Beaumont," he said, just meaning to ask, and then he stopped.

Because he recognized that book. He could see the cover, around Paul's hand holding the spine.

It was the geography book.

Paul had it open just to the front endsheet. He stayed like that, like he was reading it, for a minute, except it couldn't possibly have taken him that long to read what Lee had written. And then he wet his lips a little, and looked up too, and met Lee's eyes.

"You know, Sheridan," he said, low and warm, amused, "I don't actually walk around just—giving out directions to every American I see on the train."

Lee flushed up to his ears, and laughed, and reached up to rub sheepishly at the back of his neck. "No, of course not," he said. He held out a hand for it, beckoning with the tips of his fingers. "I—you weren't supposed to see that."

Paul didn't give it to him.

"I wasn't?" Paul repeated, and glanced down again, as if the words Lee had written in it might have vanished while he wasn't looking. "And to whom exactly were you planning to give this, then?"

"No one," Lee said, too honest, and then grimaced at himself. "I mean, I—thought about it, obviously. I was thinking about it. At Christmas."

Something changed in Paul's face. He didn't look amused anymore. He looked serious, oddly intent. And he sounded it, too, when he said, "We weren't speaking to each other at Christmas."

"No," Lee agreed, "we weren't."

He looked at the book, and at Paul's hands against it, pressed to it, curled around it. And it was as if it had only just happened, all at once: as if it was two weeks till Christmas, and Mrs. Craddock had just leaned in and murmured to him, and his head was full of Paul and he couldn't make it stop.

"I never found the right time to give it to you," he heard himself say.

Paul's eyes went strange and soft. "Probably for the best," he said quietly. "I might have socked you in the jaw if you'd tried."

"I'd have earned it," Lee said, equally quiet.

He closed his eyes. He felt a little sick, thinking of it now. Sick, and curdled-up, and ashamed. The way he'd wanted to just shove past it all and forget about it—that all that had been on his mind was figuring out how to coax Paul into forgetting about it, too. He hadn't wanted to apologize over anything, or make up for anything; because that would have let on that there was something he _ought_ to apologize over or make up for, and he wouldn't have admitted that if he could help it, not back then. He'd just wanted it all to go away, so he didn't have to keep feeling bad about it.

"Lee," Paul said, very low.

Lee cleared his throat, and blinked, and looked up. Stood, coming up out of his chair, and reached for the book for real this time.

Paul moved it away.

"All right, Beaumont," Lee said, trying to sound stern.

But when he held out his hand for the book, Paul drew it away again—twisting his body a little, protective, shielding it.

"Oh? And what exactly are you planning to do with my book?"

" _Your_ book," Lee said. "I never gave it to you. It isn't even wrapped—"

"I don't care," Paul declared, and he was trying to look severe, commanding, but his mouth gave him away: slanting that particular way it had, more on one side than the other.

Lee ignored the jump of his heart, and sighed through his nose, pretending frustration. "Come on, that's enough," he said, and leaned in, grabbing for it.

But Paul was quick, and nearly as tall as Lee, and when he lifted the book up with the whole length of his arm, leaning away from Lee and almost into the bookshelf, Lee couldn't quite snag it.

"Paul," he said, sharper, halfway annoyed for real.

And then he stopped.

Paul had that stubborn chin tilted up. His mouth was still angled, that cool lopsided smile that had always looked so smug to Lee back when he'd wanted to punch it off Paul's face, and his eyes were bright and steady and fixed on Lee. Lee's arm was—was around him, nearly.

"You bought it for me," he said, almost gently. "So it's mine, and you can't have it back."

Lee swallowed. "You don't need a geography book," he said.

Paul drew in a quick little breath, and Lee wished he hadn't noticed, but he had. "The things I need," he said quietly, "aren't the only things I want, Sheridan."

It was right then, that moment, looking at him. That was the first time it occurred to Lee that maybe there was a chance Paul was just a little mixed up about him, too.

* * *

He didn't know what to do about it.

Even if he'd been sure it was true, he wouldn't have known what to do about it. And as it was, he only ever got about halfway to believing it before he turned right around and started talking himself out of it again.

Because Lee had been tying himself up in knots over Paul since at least Christmas. But Paul—he'd _hated_ Lee, right up until the Boat Race. Hadn't he? He'd tried to get Lee and Molly to mend things between them, until Lee had confronted him about it.

But then that was exactly the kind of nonsense he ought to have expected from Paul. _He does always think he knows what's best for everybody, doesn't he?_ Paul had refused to tell the dean it was Lee who'd punched the buller, and he'd gotten himself punished for it, and that had been back when he still despised Lee. So deciding to make sure Lee and Molly were happy together, whether he himself had—had taken something of a shine to Lee or not, was in fact a Paul sort of thing to do.

Except it was also just decent, in the way Paul seemed inclined to try to be to his friends. And he and Lee were friends now. They'd shaken on it and everything.

Lee went back and forth about it a dozen times. About all of it, every little thing Paul had done and not done. The look in his eyes, except who knew whether Lee was really remembering it right, or just seeing what he wanted to see? The way he'd let Lee hold him pinned against his own doorframe, the way he'd touched Lee's jaw to tip his face toward him when they were out on the grass—except maybe there hadn't been anything odd about it; maybe it was only what Lee knew about himself, and how it had felt to him, that made it all stand out so bright in his memory. That Mrs. Craddock had set him off in the first place, and she'd been carrying on with Paul at the time. _She'd_ evidently thought Lee wanted her advice for a reason, and she'd know better than most whether Paul would be at all likely to let him get away with putting that advice into practice—

He didn't know what to do about it.

So it was lucky that in the end he didn't have to do much of anything.

Paul got in a mood.

It only took Lee about a day to notice. Or to notice it was the kind that was going to stick, at least. Paul was snappish in the morning, but Lee didn't think much of it. He was learning that that happened sometimes when Paul had slept badly.

Except by the afternoon, when Lee came back from his lecture, Paul was still acting odd. Quiet, sullen. He'd come up to Lee's room, but he wasn't talking and he wouldn't sit still.

By the time it was starting to get dark, Lee had had about enough. He couldn't get anything done himself, with Paul like this, and Paul sure wasn't either.

He thought about trying to be careful, kind. He thought about trying to coax Paul into being sensible.

And then he closed the book in front of him with a thump, and said coolly, "All right, I'm taking a walk. Come on."

Paul sneered a little. "Don't think I don't know what you're doing, Sheridan," he bit out.

But he followed Lee down the stairs and out of the hall, and when they were out in the fresh air, the sky all gold and red above them, something in the set of his shoulders eased.

So Lee was on the right track after all.

He kept walking. Paul stuck with him, a half-step ahead and perfectly in time—because even now, Lee thought, he couldn't stop competing just a little, even if he was letting Lee set the pace. Even when he was letting Lee stroke.

Something about that thought made Lee smile. But he did his best to hide the smile from Paul, just in case Paul would've taken it wrong.

By the time they'd reached the riverbank, Paul had started to settle in his skin better. The look on his face had changed, too, and his jaw wasn't so tight. He'd been running his hands absently through his hair, over and over, distracted, back in Lee's room—but he wasn't anymore. The curls of it that he'd pushed loose were still tumbled down across his forehead, but he let them be, the breeze off the river tugging at them a little.

And then, just as they were crossing a span of grass between two stands of trees next to the river, Paul slowed, and stopped.

Lee came to a halt maybe a stride further along, and looked at him. Paul had closed his eyes and turned his face toward the river, and he seemed to be breathing it in, the taste and smell of open water on the air, cool with evening.

"Better?" Lee said mildly.

Paul was quiet for a long moment.

"Yes," he said at last, and sighed a little, and then dropped down onto the grass, leaning back on his elbows.

Lee came over and did the same just beside him, so their shoulders were a breath away from touching.

"I'm sorry, Sheridan," Paul added. "I've been dreadful, haven't I?" He stopped and shook his head.

"You said it, not me," Lee murmured.

And that, at last, made Paul smile a little, quick flash of it in the dusky stillness. "Yes, well," he said, and leaned harder on the elbow nearer to Lee—just so he could lift his other hand, it turned out, and rub it tiredly across his face. "I get—hung up on things, sometimes. Can't help it." He paused for a second, and blew out a breath, and shook his head again. "But it's mine to deal with. You shouldn't have had to put up with me today, and I know it."

There wasn't any warning, not really. Even if there had been, Lee might not have noticed it. It made something in his chest tight and hot, to think Paul had been unhappy and had sought Lee out. Had done it even though he thought he shouldn't, because—maybe, maybe—he'd wanted to, and hadn't been able to talk himself out of it.

It was the obvious question. Lee cleared his throat, and asked it: "Oh? And what would you have done, if I hadn't?"

And Paul shot him a sidelong look, eyes suddenly dark, and wet his lips. _That_ was the warning, sure, but too late. Too late for Lee to do anything but lie there beside him, heart pounding, and listen to him say, "Well, last term—I suppose I'd probably have gone to the bookshop."

Gone to the bookshop. Gone to—to see Mrs. Craddock, that was what he meant.

Lee felt his face flush hot, and bit down hard on the tip of his tongue.

Last term. Because it wasn't an option this term, not since the Craddocks had sold the bookshop and moved away. And if Paul wanted it to be an option, then he'd have to find somebody else to—somebody else that he could—

The air felt very heavy, and very still. Paul had fallen silent. Lee ought to say something, except he couldn't think what, or how. He wasn't sure he could have spoken even if the words had been there waiting. His throat was tight, and aching, and his mouth abruptly dry.

And then Paul shifted a little beside Lee—closer, not away. Close enough that Lee could hear the soft click of his throat as he swallowed. And Paul said, very low, "Before that, well. It depended." He stopped, and drew a short sharp breath. And then, as if from very far away, Lee heard him add: "It was Ramsay, for a while."

So Mrs. Craddock had been right, Lee thought dimly. She'd been right, to think that Paul might let him; she'd been right, to think of the odd notions she'd picked up from all her Eton boys.

"He'd help me out sometimes," Paul was saying—still soft, but other than that almost conversational. "He'd help me out, and me him, when he needed it," and Lee might have thought it didn't mean anything after all, that he should be saying it to Lee, except that he risked a glance and met Paul's eyes, and knew, heart squeezing in his chest, that it did.

Because Paul was watching him. Watching him, intent, searching. Waiting for something.

Waiting, maybe, to be told that they didn't do it that way back in Lakedale. Or that Lee hadn't taken his meaning at all. Hadn't, or wouldn't—would choose not to, and make Paul invent some other explanation, and then get up and leave and never speak to Paul again.

Lee swallowed.

But that would be giving in. Wouldn't it? That would be backing down. That would be ceding something, Paul forever the braver of the two of them and both of them knowing it.

And obviously Lee wasn't about to let that happen.

He took a breath, and steadied himself. And then he said, as even as he could make it, "Is that right."

"Oh, indeed," Paul murmured, watching him more carefully still. "I don't suppose you've ever had an arrangement like that, Sheridan?"

Lee bit the inside of his cheek, and stared out at the river without seeing it, and hoped his face didn't look as hot as it felt. He didn't know what to think. He didn't know what to _do_. He wanted to reach out and touch Paul, and he wanted it badly—as if all the months he'd spent carefully not doing it were suddenly now adding up to more than he could stand. But at the same time he felt weak and unsteady all over, and somehow it was unbearable to think that Paul might see that in him, that his hands might shake.

"Sure, sure," he made himself say, because the one thing he _did_ know was that he wasn't about to let Paul start thinking he had Lee at some kind of disadvantage here.

"Sheridan," Paul said, almost gently, and then touched him.

Just his hand, that was all. He was leaning in close on that near elbow, in the grass, and reaching out with his other hand. He'd spread it out over Lee's chest, just to one side of where Lee's heart was hammering itself against his ribs like it meant to shove through them and press itself right into Paul's open palm.

Just his hand. But it was broad and strong and steady, it was _Paul's_ , and Lee leaned up helplessly into the touch of it, turned and reached out for Paul with both hands and kept going, until Paul was pushed into the grass on his back with Lee over him.

And Paul let him. Paul _let_ him. Paul looked up at him, and there was hardly any light at all now, sunset nearly gone, but Lee felt as though he'd never been able to see Paul's face as well as he could then.

Lee bit his lip, and caught his breath, and tried not to do anything reckless.

"Lee," Paul said, very quietly.

Lee kissed him.

He couldn't help it. He couldn't help it, but he probably should have tried to. Because for all that Paul had felt utterly relaxed under his hands, for all the smug satisfaction that had been in his voice when he'd said Lee's name—he went still beneath the press of Lee's mouth on his, fist closed tight in the front of Lee's shirt.

And that wasn't what Lee had wanted at all.

He made himself ease off. But Paul didn't let go of him, so he didn't let go of Paul, didn't roll away and stand up and start trying to pretend he hadn't done it.

Paul was staring up at him, unreadable.

"So," Lee said, fumbling, wrongfooted. "So—I guess you don't do it like that over here."

Paul's brows drew down a little. His gaze flicked across Lee's face, back and forth, up and down, like he was seeing something there but he wasn't sure what it was.

And then he narrowed his eyes, and reached up and touched Lee's cheek, and Lee couldn't help the way his breath hitched over it.

"It's not unheard of," Paul allowed, slowly, still looking at Lee in that funny tentative way—but he didn't seem so taken aback anymore. There was something else stealing across his face now, something that made Lee swallow hard. "I suppose I thought you'd take a little more convincing, that's all," he admitted after a moment.

And then, sudden, brilliant, he smiled.

"More the fool I, eh, Sheridan? Just like you, isn't it, to jump in with both feet."

He hadn't moved his hand away from Lee's face. He was—his thumb was at the corner of Lee's mouth, now, and he'd relaxed again into the grass beneath Lee, and then he shifted a little and suddenly one of his thighs was—

Lee tried to swallow the sound that wanted to come out of his throat and only half managed it, and Paul's smile got wider.

"You understand," he added, "that you're going to have to do a bit more than that to get the better of me."

And Lee found himself laughing, breathless; and then, deliberately, delightedly, he caught Paul by the chin with one hand, tipped his face away—leaned down, and set his mouth to the soft skin just beneath Paul's ear, right at the side of his throat.

Paul sucked in a breath and swore, and moved sharply against Lee like he couldn't help it. And Lee, with all the earnest sincerity in his overflowing heart, blessed Elsa Craddock and wished her many dozens of handsome, lonely officers, and then closed his eyes and kissed Paul again.


End file.
